Avenatti PSA on journalism: Don’t go public with unsubstantiated allegations

Ed MorrisseyPosted at 3:21 pm on December 6, 2018

Say what you will about Micheal Avenatti, but this is actually excellent advice. It’s just that it’s, oh, 72 days late. Now that the ox-gore is in the other torso, however, Avenatti suddenly realizes the value of not regurgitating embarrassing allegations simply because someone made them.

Somewhere, Brett Kavanaugh is laughing. Or retching.

New journalism standard – as long as you say “according to TMZ” in your piece, you are good. No need to confirm or do any other reporting. No need for real sources or to seek comment. Just regurgitate whatever TMZ posts. Because it’s all about the “clicks”…

Say, whatever happened to Julie Swetnick, anyway? Supposedly Avenatti had several “witnesses” that would “confirm” her stories about Brett Kavanaugh running gang-rape rings in suburban Washington DC as a high-school junior. Avenatti threatened to take the case to the media at the end of September, but instead the media took the case out of Avenatti’s hide by asking the obvious question — why would Swetnick keep attending these parties and not report the crimes?

After that, the media suddenly got a lot more curious about Swetnick’s claims and Avenatti’s lack of substantiation. Megyn Kelly gave Avenatti similar advice at that time, saying that he’d better put up or shut up by filing a criminal complaint and producing confirmation. What did Avenatti think of that warning at the time? Er ….

. @megynkelly – I generally respect your work as a journalist but you should be ashamed of yourself for attacking my client, a sexual assault victim, without facts. And you base your attacks on bogus legal actions that were filed & almost immediately dismissed. You know better.

Avenatti then put Swetnick into an interview with NBC’s Kate Snow, which turned out to be disastrous. Swetnick contradicted the statements in the affidavit Avenatti proferred, and reported that they couldn’t confirm anything Swetnick said in either version of her story. Other than putting Swetnick on the air, NBC actually did what Avenatti now demands from journalists. Did he like those results?